Ukraine: a change of view on the change of regime
Subject: Ukraine: a change of view on the change of regime
Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2014
From: Stephen D. Shenfield <sshenfield@verizon.net>
In my paper ‘Ukraine: popular uprising or fascist coup?’ (JRL 2014-#75-76, April 4-5) I concluded that right radicals played a ‘crucial role’ in the change of regime in Kiev. Since then I have reconsidered this view in light of a new source that has come to my attention. I now think that the role of the right radicals may have been significant but that it was not crucial.
It may seem odd that a single source should have led me to change my view just a couple of days after disseminating my analysis. However, not all sources are of equal value. Very few sources on the recent and current events in Ukraine are really trustworthy.The source that made me change my mind was a video (unfortunately incomplete) of a lecture delivered in Russian on March 25 in Tel Aviv by Vyacheslav Likhachev on the topic ‘The Revolution in Ukraine and the Jews’ (http://eajc.org/page18/news44145.html). I am familiar with the work of Mr. Likhachev, who has specialized for many years in the study of Russian and Ukrainian radical nationalism and is closely associated with the research group known as SOVA (formerly PANORAMA), and I have full confidence in his professionalism and integrity.
I had gained a strong impression from various (mostly journalistic) sources that violent combat with the Berkut police of the Yanukovych regime was the work mainly if not wholly of the Right Sector. Facts cited by Mr. Likhachev indicate that this was not the case. When the ‘Maidan self-defense forces’ were set up they were organized into units called ‘hundreds’ (sotni). Initially the Right Sector accounted for only one of these units. There were quite a few other units (exactly how many is still unclear to me) that had nothing to do with the right radicals ,including a ‘Jewish Hundred.’ Even at the height of their popularity, says Mr.Likhachev, the Right Sector and other right radicals had only some 700 fighters.
Although the right radicals were not numerically predominant even in the ranks of the armed insurgents, let alone those of the nonviolent demonstrators (estimated by Mr. Likhachev to have numbered about two million), they were evidently very successful in seizing the limelight and creating an impression of their importance that misled many commentators including myself. No doubt this served their own organizational interests, but it inflicted incalculable damage on the reputation of the broad civic movement of the ‘Maidan.’
I do not want to deny the significance of the right radicals altogether. Even the presence of such forces on a modest scale is cause for concern. But exaggeration of the threat posed by them also has its dangers, and I regret having unwittingly contributed to such exaggeration.